Immigration Trends in USA

Introduction:

Travelling with Muni was not always a pleasant experience in San Francisco. Many times it is delayed and stopped frequently. But I love talking to versatile multiethnic group of travelers. They speak different languages like German, Chinese, Spanish, English, Urdu, Farsi and Hindi. They come from different countries worldwide. Most of the travelers are working professionals apart from students, retired and business group. Most of these immigrants work legally on different work visa. They came here as students or sponsored employee and some of them started working in USA.

Ever since it’s foundation in 1776 and even before United States of America has attracted immigrants from many countries.  People have gathered under this country’s protective wings as opportunity seeker, religion gurus, refugees and even illegal immigrants. America has become only hope in thousands of other countries natives.

Christopher Columbus with a Spanish flagged ship landed Bahamas on October, 1492. With the discovery of America, It was beginning of European beginning and settlement which changed the face of American history. Most of the colonist came from England and other came from other parts of the globe. Why they come, for variety of reasons like adventure, to escape legislative prosecution, seek economic opportunities or they were forced to as convicts or slave. Most of them had king and queen ruling experience with them. Native of America were Red Indians who had strong belief in democracy through their election for tribal leader. Colonist saw this amazing unique experience of democracy and adopted it slowly. Over centuries America become centre of Democracy in world.

Democracy brought this country united with political stability. With United state, this united nation took off economically. Soon, it was well on its way to become world power. Railroads, steel mills and oil fields played an important role and industrial surge exploded its economy in to a world power house. But as Mark Twain put it; “What was beautiful on the service has an intense human toll on its base”. For every mile of rail road many workers give their lives. For every ton of coal mine many human lives were lost. Most these lost soul were here to explore a better life as immigrant. Masses of immigrant workers really made progress and built the foundation upon which this industrial nation is based today. America was more than ever a nation of immigrants. First immigration center Castle garden opened in New York city in 1855. Ellis island and statue of liberty become world’s most famous immigration stations, operating from 1892 to 1954.

Almost all the second wave of immigrant came from northern and western Europe. One third were Irish primarily escaping the potato famine in the mid of 1840’s. Almost a third more were German. In the mid 1800 some states and rail road companies sent their agent to Europe to attract settlers and in mid 1800 story of gold in California reached China. Chinese immigrants crossed the pacific to become rich. French-Canadian immigrants crossed the borders to settle down in New England & Michigan. Across the globe, people were streaming towards America. Energy of this collective movement of this world’s population towards this land must been exciting and unequal in all of human history. This low of immigrant alarmed many of native born Americans due to more hardship on less pay attitude of travelled sect. They were losing jobs to an immigrant due to employer preference changes with business and comfort levels. Natives started demanding new tougher immigration laws in 1850’s. In 1875 US passed the first restrictive immigration law. In California, this time unrest was beginning to develop towards immigrants. Claiming that they were jeopardizing the community with cheap labor and it is heated the debate further to put more restriction with immigration legislation.          

 Roadmap of immigration legislation in USA:

Ø  Early years of the United States since inception: Less than 8,000 immigration/year

Ø  Naturalization act of 1790: limited naturalization to “free white persons”

Ø  1836-1914: Over 30 million European immigrants to America

Ø  After 1880s: “new immigrants” from eastern and southern Europe

Ø  Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882: Suspended Chinese immigration

Ø  Emergency Quota Act & Immigration Act of 1924: Aimed at restricting Southern & Eastern European immigrants

Ø  Great depression: More people leaving than entering the United States

Ø  Hart-Cellar Act of 1965: Abolished earlier quota system. For the first time Mexican immigration was restricted

Ø  Immigration doubled between 1965 & 1970: Many non-European immigrants entered the USA

Ø  Immigration Reform & Control Act 1986: granted amnesty to illegal immigrants who had been in the United States before 1982 but made it a crime to hire an illegal immigrant.

Myths about immigrants:

1.      Drag on the economy: Immigrants are net benefit to economy. Economists have universal agreement that immigrant benefits are not huge but significant enough to not rule out its importance.

2.      Steal Jobs: When an immigrant start working we see as an American loses their jobs to them. But there is no evidence to prove that. Actually, when an immigrant chooses a job, another job is created for an American. Over the time we don’t see unemployment increases due to job given to immigrants. Unemployment remained constant over last 60 years even after jobs transferred to immigrants.

3.      Depress wages: We add more workers to workforce but that must not depress wages. There is not much evidence for this argument. Except, Economist found when looked at people who have diploma and even that negative impact over their wages is very small. Reason is that immigrants are different than domestic labors because they bring in different skill set. Immigrants are either high skilled or low skilled so they complement American talent which is in between of high and low skills. Results American and immigrants become more productive together.

New Trend in Immigration from US to other countries:

In downturn of recession amid 2008, as unemployment hovers more than 10%; a new trend gained ground. Trend is to find the dream jobs outside of America. Americans travelled half way across the world to India. India is known as IT super power globally in recent years.  Infosys, Wipro and TCS recruited many American young and experienced graduates in IT.

According to American Colin Murphy of Infosys, “there is definitely sense of excitement here. Things are looking up for India even throughout recession things were very positive here. You can’t say same thing about states.”  

Briana Dieter again an American in India by many years and HR-Head for North America of Infosys added that, “we have students from Harvard, Stanford and MIT. They get to understand what is Infosys and What is the IT industry. Because the most of the internships are based in India; it is important to learn about what is India and part of that is to breaking myths and misconceptions.  

After years of Indian brain drain to US a new era has begun, that is thousands of Americans are packing their bags for India to find better jobs in the land of new opportunity. Founder of Infosys, Narayana Murthy conclude that “Where ever there is economic opportunities; people from all over the world will congregate there. They will leverage those opportunities. That’s what is happening in China & India. “

New trend in Immigration in USA post recession:

Immigrant who came here in 1970s and 1980s, want to go back to their birth country. Especially Chinese and Indians want to go back due to negative growth of USA in and post recession. So called American brain drain started happening in 2008 measurably. 

Many highly skilled immigrants had chosen to leave US to start their dreams overseas. Many business minded folks has decided to go back to natives to tap the growing opportunities compare to US. They feel China and India is the place where next cycle of growth and prosperity is coming. Study shows that 10% of millionaires in America are Indians. Silicon Valley to motel industry this community have finger prints all over US. America was built by immigrants. Now, this reverse trend has started that is to going back to land of better opportunities from US. This trend has direct impact over economy of the country. Means, immigrants are taking the brands and money backwards the country where they came from.

According to Prof. Vivek Wadhwa of UC Berkley and Duke University, “Immigrants are 12 % of American population but 52% of start ups in innovation home Silicon Valley during dotcom days were started by immigrants. So if incase they were not here, they would not have created jobs and economic boom. Recent research shows that immigrants have created more jobs than those taken away. They made America super power in innovation & technology. “

There was time when everyone wanted to come to America to stay here and to live American dreams. But now situation is changing. To take green card after OPT and H1B process take many years to complete. And immigrant has to stay in US for that. Immigrants are losing patience over backlog of VISA. But main reason for immigrants are going back is economic boom and prosperity of their native country in coming years. They want to be part of economic developments. They also want to earn their share of benefit on rapid pace of growth and development.

Research explains that more 30% of returnees are American citizens. A vast majority of returnee are relatively young-30 is the average age for Indian returnees and 33 is average age for Chinese returnees.

Most of the immigrant returnees are thrilled to go back to hold a senior position in management. With a poll result explains about 10% Indian holding senior management positions in US and number goes up to 44% after they return home.  Among Chinese, number goes up to 36% from 9%.

Conclusion:

From Unemployment rate ticking up from 9% in April to 9.1% in May due to rumors surrounding Euro countries, LinkedIn IPO inflated price hike bubble and many political instability across Middle East & African Countries, China and India. American economy is directly related to good or bad economic news worldwide.

If it is Japan calamity or Steve Jobs illness, Investors and industries are highly sensible and relate every event impact with their profit and loss.  Employment is highly depending on trend of economy rather just on forecast. Even now, Forecast is also not accurate due to largely changing parameters in business and high speed information sharing. Nothing is a secret and nothing is permanent. Change is the law now on every small interval of time.

Due to fast changes in atmosphere of business, Immigrants may look for their better options around them decisively. If they get a good job in native country which is lucrative for Americans also; can go back to pursue their dreams in spite of chasing unrealistic dreams and long term goals like green card.

But also, this America has always been a land of opportunity, where with hardwork irrelevance of background anyone can succeed. Country has welcomed people with passion and desire to perform. Luck with your search of best opportunity.         

References

Business Week, (March 09, 2009), America’s Immigrant Brain Drain, by Vivek Wadhwa

Centre for Immigration Studies, (2009), Trends in immigrant and native employment.  by Steven A. Camarota, Karen Jensenius

Knowldegerush.com, Christopher Columbus

Wikipedia, List of United States immigration Legislation, History of United States

You Tube,( May 12, 2011, 3 Myths About Immigration, by Prof. Ben Powell

Wall Street Journal, (June 04, 2011), Job Market Looses Momentum, Justin Lahart

How to conduct an effective meeting

How many times have you thought that meetings are a waste of time?

I am certain that many of us have had meetings happening in a disorganized and ineffective way. Usually we see meetings were we ramble and lost time talking at the same time about different topics without a clear objective.

I have conducted several meetings and I’m certain that in order to be more productive we need to correct the following issues:

• Disorganization
• Not clear objectives
• Individualism
• No timekeeper
• No respect for each other ideas

I’ve read many articles around meetings and I learned that one of the most effective ways to conduct a meeting is applying a concept called PDORA for every team session. This means to define the session’s purpose [P]; the session’s desire outcomes [DO]; a process for determining who will play the roles [R] of timekeeper, minute takes, and scribe; and an agenda [A] with clock times. Additionally, it is important that as a team member we should not bring emotions in group sessions, since emotions can cause disruption, yet we must be respectful when team members provide emotional comets.

If we learn how to apply the PDORA concept, I’m confident that meetings will become richer and productive, but we need to allocate time to integrate team members in order to perform better and reach common goals. We need to define roles in every meeting, so we could at least have a minute taker, a time keeper, and a facilitator. This last role would be responsible for clarifying and assigning tasks to each of the team members. I I I’m convinced that by doing this we will certainly increase meetings productivity and therefore we will be achieving goals and changing our feelings towards meetings.

Here are the key points to follow in every meeting:

• Have a meeting facilitator
• Frame a meeting (ground rules)
• Ensure there is buy-in on the frame
• Have each party express his/her views and concerns
• Ask questions to gain clarity
• View conflict as a problem to be solved
• Ask parties to identify ways to gain win-win situations
• Facilitate until agreement is reached

After some meeting you will realize that by having a facilitator in every meeting you will be able to:

• Give everyone the opportunity to talk and give an opinion about a certain topic
• Trust each other and respect each other ideas
• Change roles and favor each person’s leadership
• Be flexible and adjust your strategies to achieve your goals

CSR in Mexico

In Mexico the CSR distinctive is given by a NGO called CEMEFI (Centro Mexicano para la Filantropia). The CEMEFI gives the opportunity to every company to qualify for CSR. In order to do this a company must do a self diagnosis, and fill out and send different forms accompanied with evidence. Those forms and evidence are audited by the CEMEFI.

The CSR Distinctive credits the company with employees, investors, customers, authorities  and  society  in general, to assume voluntary public commitment to socially responsible management, as part of their culture and business strategy.

The CSR Distinctive commits the company to comply with the proposed standards for “Life Quality within the company, " "Business Ethics”, “Company’s linage with the community " and  "Care  and  preservation of the environment. "

Obtaining the CSR Distinctive is the result of the implementation of a socially responsible management in four areas of business social responsibility:

·         Life quality within the company

·         Business Ethics

·         Company’s linkage with the community

·         Care and preservation of the environment

CSR pyramid:

As the CSR Pyramid illustrates, businesses have a primary economic responsibility to “be profitable.” Over this foundational responsibility there are three additional responsibilities: the legal one to obey the law, the ethical one to do what’s right and avoid harm, and the philanthropic one to be a good corporate citizen.

Here we can see, that the four points required by the CEMEFI addresses the two top levels of the pyramid, but fail to address the first two levels, which are very important in terms of obeying the law (which is a society’s codification of right and wrong), and   in terms of the primary economic responsibility to “be profitable.”

An example of a company that I believe is illustrative of a good example of CSR in practice is “Pronosticos para la asistencia publica”. I selected this company, because they are the largest government lottery organization which donates most of its earnings to charity. My basis is that it is well known in Mexico that they help the Mexican society by fulfilling their mission of “Maximize the generation of resources to support national priorities in education and health, by developing the best sweepstakes that meet the expectations of Mexican society, supporting the development of their employees and distribution channels under a scheme of confidentiality, integrity, availability, growth and transparency.”

An example of a company that I believe is illustrative of a bad example of CSR in practice is “Telcel”, the largest mobile carrier provider in Mexico. I selected this company because Telcel was created thanks to the earnings of Telmex, the first telephone land line private provider. However, it is well known that Telmex was created under various corrupted circumstances between Carlos Slim (a powerful businessman) and the Mexican government. For several years Telmex provided an expensive and poor communication service with almost no client services since it was the only land line company in Mexico (a monopoly). Now Telcel is the largest mobile provider in Mexico, but they keep practicing monopolistic practices such as high prices and hidden charges, which affect the majority of the Mexican population. That being said, Telcel endorsed the CSR label under their supposed commitment of continuous telecommunications development in the country, bringing their customers the best coverage and highest quality mobile communication services in more than 90% of the inhabited areas of Mexico where it operates. This is true, but they don’t do anything to lower their prices to really benefit the whole society.

A business practice that is well known and in some cases acceptable in Mexico is bribery, even though it is prohibited by the law. Many government organizations still promote under the table bribery in order to e able to sell to them. This practice conflicts with one of the three fundamental guiding principles of “respect for core human values”, because through bribery integrity is broken thus, promoting corporate and personal corruption in order to sell to a certain government organization.

As a manager in my country I can say that none of the firms that I’ve worked with would be able to sign on to and abide by the UNGC’s Ten Global Principles. This, because even most of the firms where I’ve worked in covered most of the first six Global Principles of Human Rights and Labor, they fail to address the last four points of environment and anticorruption.

Generally speaking the companies that I’ve worked with cared about the employee’s well being, and they make sure that they are not complicit in human rights abuse. Additionally I’ve never seen any kind of compulsory labor or discrimination. However, I never saw any environmental preoccupation such as less energy consumption or promoting any kind on friendly technology. These firms were more focused on profits and because of that some of these firms felt into some form of bribery in order to accomplish a specific sale or objective.